What If I’m Actually the Best?

Circe, as the firstborn daughter of the Titan Helios, the god of the sun, was never accepted by her family as she was since she did not look the part. Her birth became a disappointment for her mother simply because she was not beautiful enough to be wed to one of Zeus’ sons.

When her brother Aethes was born, their mother gave him up because he carried no prophecy from Helios. Circe saw this as a chance and adopted Aethes as if he were her son, believing they could be each other’s companions until the end of time. She was certain they shared the same destiny of not being chosen.

They grew up inseparable, bound by a faith she believed would last forever, until the one she trusted most was the first to go. When Aethes was granted his own kingdom, he never looked back leaving Circe alone.

Centuries passed, long enough for Circe to witness Prometheus being punished for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mankind. While the gods continued their feasts, laughing coldly as Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock in the Caucasus Mountains, his liver eaten by a hawk over and over again, Circe was the only one who showed him compassion. What Circe recognised in Prometheus was not just suffering, but a nature punished for being given the wrong world. Prometheus was gifted with foresight. He saw the chains, the eagle, the pain that would outlive centuries, yet the meaning was never in the punishment that awaited but in the act that defined him in that moment.

By rejecting the passive, immoral lifestyle of the gods, Prometheus became a mentor, teaching her that she could define her own character and create her own path rather than be shaped by her father’s court.

Long after the gods stopped watching, the same story continued, quieter, smaller, carried in human flesh instead of stone. It settled into bloodlines, temperaments, and nervous systems as seeds that couldn’t choose which soil they fell into. That inheritance shaped how I felt, and how I remained unseen, taking root as sensitivity and turning my transparency into a setback over time. My father viewed crying as a weakness so I battled my tears whenever they insisted on spilling out. Yet my resistance intensified, and instead of crying less, I cried more.

I remember family game nights when I would end up crying and leave the room, only to wait behind closed doors while they spoke about how weak I was. At times my sisters would yell at me and I’d meet it with shaky hands, my eyes drifting toward the ceiling simultaneously to shove my tears back inside. Suppression felt like rescue back then yet instead of erasing those emotions, it allowed them to leave blueprints on my nervous system. I learned early that love was earned not through feeling, but through performance. Achievement became the safest language I had and with that planted early I spent every hour and every minute of my life trying to make my father proud. In time it turned into a hunger for excellence while I spent years striving for flawlessness and in return my biggest fear waited for me each time I failed.

A few days ago, I faced that fear head-on when my father called everything I had built a failure. I couldn’t stop the tears. His temper rose in response, and I retreated to the bathroom, the only place where my crying did not feel like something to apologise for. Between gasping for air and crying through hiccups, I hoped that that they would stop, or at least quiet down if I hid beneath the water. They grew louder.

Carrying the same sorrow into the next morning, I was grateful for a full day of volunteering at the hospital, which spared me from being at home. I was still unstable, and if I hadn’t begun pouring everything onto the page, I would have cried in the middle of the psychiatric ward.

Writing had always freed me from the weight pressing on my chest. While I felt somewhat relieved after this release, it took less than a minute for my tears to return when one of the patients approached me and said she could see the sadness in my eyes. I immediately looked up at the ceiling to shove them back inside and all of a sudden I was standing in front of my sisters with shaky hands, trying to act like I wasn’t going to cry. Moments I learned to survive by retreating into denial as a refuge escaping from the cruelty of rejection. A temporary relief that began to distort reality over time. Leaving me imprisoned in a vicious cycle where denial intensified self-blame, and I learned to link every possible problem back to myself.

Moving abroad changed that. Distance gave me room to see my patterns without immediately collapsing into them. Without the constant presence of familiar voices, I was forced to listen to my own. Earlier in my life, I kept deviating from my path, feeling misaligned with myself, until I realised it wasn’t me who needed changing, but the path itself. Leaving peeled away the identities that had wrapped themselves around me, layer by layer, until I could finally see who I truly was.

I spent much of my time alone, yet never felt lonely. In that solitude, I became a quiet observer of my own mind, watching thoughts dissolve like clouds once I learned to recognise them instead of giving a reaction.

My existential pain was rooted in the distance between who I was and who I felt compelled to prove myself to be. I spent years avoiding it by denying what was real, casting aside the parts of myself I did not want to own, and blurring the truths that hurt too much to touch. In return, denial placed distance between me and the pain, and eventually, between me and myself. When I finally found the courage to seek clarity instead of running from it, I asked myself

“What if I’m actually the best, not by the world’s terms, but my own?”1

And in doing so, I learned to turn my sensitivity into perception, naming what I would no longer tolerate, just as Circe did in exile, when solitude and the land itself became the source of her power. Left with only wild animals, a small cottage, and a landscape rich with plants, she learned what the gods never taught her. Exile was not a punishment for being broken. It was the condition that allowed her power to emerge.

Stepping away is not an act of weakness; it is the courage to be honest with oneself. When I finally admitted what does not serve my path I realised where I kept trying to belong was also the place that taught me to disappear.

When awareness arrived, sensitivity stopped being something to manage and became something to trust. That was when perception replaced self-doubt.

I’m unstable, sometimes hysterical, often delusional and far from perfect.

And that feels more than enough.

Author’s note:

Thank you so much for reading.

I pour a lot of myself onto these pages. I don’t write to convince or persuade. I write to stay honest. And if something here made you feel seen, less alone, or quietly understood, then you already know what this space is.

If you’re in a position to do so, supporting this work by upgrading to paid allows me to keep choosing it. It means I can continue showing up, creating with care, and doing my best for the shared space we’re building together.

Thanks for reading! If these words spoke to you, let them travel.